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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Frank Straub and Kathleen O’Toole: New approaches needed to cut property crime

Guest opinion

As the police chiefs of Washington’s two largest cities, we share with our colleagues across the state a duty to improve public safety in the communities we serve.

Yes, our statewide crime rate is 41 percent lower today than in 1980. Yet, relative to other states, Washington’s progress in reducing crime has slowed – particularly when it comes to property crime. Since 2009, property crime has dropped 11 percent nationally, but actually increased in our state. Washington now has the highest property crime rate in the nation.

Over the past year, a task force of criminal justice leaders from across the state analyzed reams of data and compared our policies with those of other states. Their findings made it clear that our efforts to reduce property crime are hampered by two big challenges.

First, Washington is the only state that doesn’t hold property offenders accountable for their behavior by supervising and treating after jail or prison. Repeat property offenders are routinely released from confinement without supervision, even as they struggle with addictions and other challenges that, when left untreated, can contribute to continued criminal involvement and re-incarceration. This revolving door is one reason why our prisons are now full beyond capacity.

Second, we have among the fewest law enforcement officers per capita of any state in the country, making it harder to prevent and reduce crime. The innovative and smart law enforcement strategies that our state’s police departments could employ to reduce our property-crime rate require additional resources.

In Seattle and Spokane, we are pursuing new data-driven strategies to tackle property crime – and we are seeing results.

In Seattle, we are focusing our criminal justice resources on the most severe and persistent offenders. Most notably, through the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, we are connecting low-level offenders with intensive services and supports, to reduce recidivism and avoid unnecessary system involvement. Recent research shows this approach is working.

In Spokane, we established the Chronic Offender Unit, which offers the most persistent adult and juvenile property offenders access to services to address the underlying causes of their criminal engagement. If an offender won’t accept these services, we follow their criminal case, asking for higher bails and stiffer sentences. In 2014, Spokane saw the first substantial property-crime reductions in six years.

However, we and our fellow law-enforcement leaders need additional resources to further such promising crime prevention and reduction initiatives.

We agree with the recommendations of the statewide justice reinvestment task force, and with the bipartisan majority of state senators who voted overwhelmingly to fight property crime with a smart, comprehensive and cost-effective plan based on the task force’s recommendations.

The plan mandates 12 months of intensive and meaningful supervision and needed treatment for a projected 2,000 property offenders after they are released from jail or prison. Currently, these offenders go unsupervised and without needed treatment.

The task force found that 80 percent of these individuals reported some kind of drug and mental health issue, and that requiring their supervision and treatment would reduce their reoffending by 13 percent.

Although we need to catch up to the rest of the states in using supervision and treatment to halt the revolving door for these offenders, it is clear that the severity of our prison sentences is more than sufficient. Washington sentences repeat property offenders to prison for more than twice as long as other states with sentencing guidelines, such as North Carolina or Kansas.

By bringing our sentencing policies in line with what has worked in other states and adding mandatory periods of supervision and treatment – where offenders face immediate consequences for violations – we strengthen our strategy to deter and reduce property crime.

The proposal would help stabilize the state’s prison population, avoiding the projected need to build prison space for 851 additional inmates, and averting $124 million in costs over six years.

Instead of investing in building the next prison, these reforms would allow the state to reinvest into more cost-effective, data-driven crime prevention and reduction strategies. This plan invests $2 million annually in fiscal years 2016 and 2017 to build up law enforcement’s efforts to deter crime and calls for $4 million each year thereafter.

We understand that changing our criminal justice system can prompt concern. However, we must reduce property crime by investing in effective law enforcement efforts and by holding property offenders more accountable upon release.

Frank Straub is chief of the Spokane Police Department. Kathleen O’Toole is chief of the Seattle Police Department.